The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Eric Trump testifies in Southern District of Florida

Eric Trump took a page from his father’s playbook Tuesday, telling a
judge the billionaire’s renovations to a foundering Florida golf club he
bought made it even better.
“We took something that had really
gone bad and we made it great again,” Eric Trump, the executive vice
president of the golf club, told a judge in West Palm Beach, echoing
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign slogan.
The Trump
Organization saved Trump National Golf Club Jupiter because it was
insolvent, Eric Trump testified. Most members love the renovated golf
club now, he said. The suit was filed by former golfers at the club who
say they were ripped off when Trump didn’t refund their deposits and
barred them from the facilities.
After
having insisted for months that people who resigned their memberships
at the club didn’t lose access, Eric Trump admitted he was wrong on that
point and that some had been barred.
“I’m the first person to have enough hubris to say when you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” he said.
The
former members sued the golf club in Jupiter to recover almost $5
million in deposits that they say should have been refunded when the
elder Trump changed the membership rules after buying the venture from
Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. in 2012.

No jury in this one... it will be up to Judge Marra:

Both sides
in the dispute agreed to waive a jury trial, so U.S. District Judge
Kenneth Marra will decide whether Trump must pay the club’s former
members back.
Marra said at the conclusion of the two-day trial on Tuesday that he’d rule later.

The Southern District of Florida blog was started in 2005 by David Oscar Markus, who is a criminal trial and appellate lawyer in Miami, Florida. He frequently practices in federal courts around the country, including his hometown, the Southern District of Florida and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a former law clerk to then-Chief Judge of the District, Edward B. Davis.